Firmin, Giles

, a nonconformist divine and physician, was born in 1617, in Suffolk, and educated at Cambridge, where he studied physic, and afterwards practised it with great success in New England, to which he fled, as he said, to enjoy liberty of conscience. When that, kowever, was restored about the latter end of the civil wars, he returned to England, was ordained, and became minister at Shalford, in Essex, where he continued till he was ejected, in 1662, by the act of uniformity. He afterwards resumed the practice of physic, but never neglected to preach when he had an opportunity, in which he appears to have been protected by his excellent and charitable character as a physician. He died in 1697, at the age of eighty. He was author of several works, the most known of which is his “Real Christian.” The others are of the controversial kind, with the Quakers, Antinomians, and Anabaptists, or concerning church government. He bad far more moderation as well as loyalty than many of his brethren, and even is said to have joined with a few like himself, during the usurpation, in praying for the exiled royal family. ²